This page serves as the central hub for standards used in writing articles on Battlestar Wiki. Discussion on new or established standards and conventions listed in this section should be discussed on the talk page.

This set of pages are not designed to supersede other projects or policies. Some overlap is expected, but project-specific standards and conventions should be moved to their project page, if one exists or a page created for a project, if one does not.

Summary of Standards and Conventions

This is the Cliff Notes version of our Standards and Conventions guidelines for your convenience. While they are explained in more detail in the subpages, most people will not want to use their time reading through them (despite the fact that we've made them as concise as possible). Still, here we go...

Formatting

Markup

Always use Wiki code instead of HTML code, unless the Wiki code equivalent does not exist.

NEVER use: <b> for bold face, <i> for italics, <a href> for links, <img> for images.

Exception: There is presently no wiki code for underlining text, so one would use <u>text to be underlined</u>. Further, to center text on pages, you will have to use <div align="center">text to be centered</div>.

Images and Audio Content

Avoid burdening down a page with pictures. Use only pictures whenever necessary to illustrate the subject. Each picture must have a reason for use under the fair use clause of United States' copyright law.

Articles are never to be sorted by articles ("the", "and", "or") or by first names.

The {{DEFAULTSORT:}} syntax is always to be used to declare a sort key for category listings.

In extreme circumstances, this may be overridden by declaring the sort key in the syntax of select categories, example of a category syntax from Battlestar Galactica (RDM): [[Category:RDM|*]]. The "|*" allows the article to come before the alphabetical listings, so that it is the most visible.

Linking to Episodes

When linking to episodes, always link the first instance of the episode name per section. Beyond that, do not overlink episode titles.

As for how to refer to episodes within an article:

When referring to episode titles as part of the sentence, always include the episode name in quotation marks:

When citing multiple episode titles as a source for a body of text, place all episode names within one set of parentheses. Each episode title should use commas to separate them within the parentheticals.

Prose and Grammar

Spelling and Numeric Notation

American English spellings are default. British English spellings are allowed by users familiar with that language, but expected your edits to be converted into American English. (i.e. "colour" will be converted to "color", etc.)

Numbers should use commas ( , ) to mark every three digits, and decimal points ( . ) to denote numbers with decimals.

The exception to this are Vipers or Raptors identified by numerics, i.e. Viper 8757 or Raptor 1.

Use an apostrophe-S ('s) for all possessives, unless the noun is plural.

"Pegasus's fuel reserves are low." (singular possessive)

"The Vipers' ammunition would not fire." (plural possessive)

Characters Names and Titles

When first introducing a character, always introduce them by their first and last names.

In text, characters should always be referred to by their last names.

Exception: Characters sharing the same last name, like Saul Tigh and Ellen Tigh, or William Adama and Lee Adama, may be either be referred to by their first names, by rank and last name (if applicable), or - sparingly - with rank only (e.g. in an article from Lee Adama's point of view: "The Admiral tells Adama to...")

Members of the Quorum of Twelve should always be referred to as "delegates", not "representatives".

Characters should not be referred to by their nicknames. For instance, when writing an article, William Adama should never be referred to as "the Old Man" or "Bill".

Ship Names

Rule of Thumb: If a ship has a name, like a person, then you do not use the word "the" before it. You wouldn't refer to the commander of Galactica as "the William Adama," now would you? So why would you call Adama's ship "the Galactica" instead of Galactica? The answer: you wouldn't—and you shouldn't—because it's wrong.

Ship names are proper nouns, and therefore should be treated in the same manner.

It is incorrect to use the definite article "the" before a ship name (Galactica, Rising Star, Pegasus, et al.), although many people in both writing and speaking make this grammatical error.

Exception: The word "the" should only be used when describing the ship type before naming the vessel, i.e. "the battlestarGalactica", "the civilian ship Scylla."

As for the Re-imagined Series, anything happening before the events depicted in the Miniseries should be written in the past tense. However, this is where things get interesting:

If an article is exclusively about Caprica (which occurs roughly 50 years before the Miniseries), then it should be written in present tense, except for events from before the Caprica pilot. The same applies for articles exclusively about the Re-imagined Series.

If an article spans from Caprica to the Re-imagined Series, then:

Events occurring before the Miniseries (timeline-wise) should be written in the past tense.

Events occurring during and after the Miniseries (timeline-wise) should be written in the present tense.

About Signatures...

Signatures are to be used exclusively on talk pages. If the title of the page you're editing does not have "talk" in its name, do not add your name or timestamp to it.

Biographies on Cast, Crew, and People

The lead sentence or paragraph introduces the reader to the subject matter. It includes, the person's full name, date of birth and death, nationality, role in the series' and other appearances that the person is notable for.

The article's tense is determined by whether the subject is presently alive or deceased. If alive, everything is written in present tense; if deceased, everything is written in past tense.

Always refer to the subject by their last name.

Articles of reasonable length should be sectioned off, and typically written in this order: Childhood, Early career, Work on Battlestar Galactica, and Later career.

Articles with time sensitive information should be written with care. Always specify when the event is to occur, and never use vague words like "currently", "most recently", "presently", "this year" or "latest". Instead, use "as of [this date], such and such is to occur".

Questions should never be debated on the episode guide page. Questions should always be questioned and discussed on the corresponding talk page.

Notes and Analysis

Any questions that are raised, and subsequently answered within the same episode, are typically placed in the analysis section. Use of {{inlineref}} is recommended, so that questions raised in previous episode guide articles can easily link to the specific analysis point.

The different between "Notes" and "Analysis": notes are for information that require no further explanation or plausible speculation, whereas analysis is content that requires digging into the meat of the series and explaining contradictions, plot evolutions, and other content that requires critical thinking.

Further, items under either or both "Notes" and "Analysis" should be sectioned off by topic.

For example: Cylon related developments should be sectioned under "The Cylons", points about specific characters should be noted under a sub-section on that character, and analysis of major events (such as Gaius Baltar's trial) should be noted under that specific topic. This allows bullet points to be better ordered, and to avoid "jumping around" in the text.

Disambiguations

Disambiguations are navigational aids that help direct people to articles on specific subjects that share the same names, since many of the Battlestar Galactica series use the same names. Disambiguations come in two forms: a page (such as Adama), and in the form of an acronym within parentheses tacked on an article name (such as Adama (TOS)).

Due to the popularity of the new series, as well as the volume of articles related to the Re-imagined Series, the use of the link [[Galactica]] will lead to the Galactica (RDM) article on the new series' battlestar. A disambiguation header always appears on this article for the two other ship articles on Galactica. The same is true for Pegasus.

Disambiguation pages themselves have a unique format, consisting of:

An introductory sentence introducing that the following articles share the same name, with the disambiguated term boldfaced.

This is to be followed by one-sentence bullet points about each article that shares that name, ending in a full stop (i.e. a period).

If necessary, section off the bullet point lists by series or, failing that, by a unique classification.

After the bullet points are completed, the page is ended with the {{disambig}} template.